Since it’s just about a year since I started playing around with the internet, I thought perhaps it is high time to make some changes to my blog, Psora Psora Psora.

Indeed, over the last year, I’ve been asked several times, first, what the name of the blog means and, second, just what kind of blog it is.

The first question is much easier to answer.

Psora is a homeopathic term. It literally means “itch.” But it is most often used to refer to any disease that if functional in nature—that relates to an over-reaction or under-reaction on the part of the body. Allergies, for instance, are a functional disorder that impact the lives of countless millions of disease. Psoric diseases are those that will not show up on any test, that seem to be rooted in mystery, and yet—there they are. Things don’t function right, the patient suffers and not reason can be found.

This is the heart of Psora: a mystery. Symptoms are its clues. But, so far, no solution, no answer. Psoric things are those that we have to learn to “live with.” That we adapt to, as our lives are shaped by the limitations that Psora brings.

I named the blog Psora Psora Psora for two reasons. First, as an homage (in other words, stolen from) the old movie, Tora Tora Tora. As they are homonyms, it seemed apt. Second, each Psora relates to a different level of being: body, mind and spirit, as each can get equally fucked up, and, in it’s ultimate meaning, there is no better, simpler definition for Psora than “fucked up.”

Psora, by the way, is pronounced “sora.” The “p” is psilent.

Now, on to that second question: just what kind of blog is this, anyway?

Damned if I know. I started it without a plan in mind and have managed to be very disciplined in that arena since the launch. Blame it on Psora. This blog is seemingly an avenue of dysfunction. Friends of the homeopathic sort complain that I spend too much time writing about other things, about Tina Fey and pickled beets and some-such. Friends of the literary sort think I spend WAY too much time going on and on about homeopathy. They think I am seeing Skeptics behind every tree and under every rock and worry that I will soon take to wearing a tinfoil hat to keep the Obama administration out of my head.

All I can say about that is that I care passionately about homeopathy, and yet, if I had to post posts about what remedies to take during allergy season and nothing else, I would go mad. But perhaps during the second year I can formulate a plan, or spin off another blog on literary matters and leave this to homeopathy. Who can say?

Finally there is the matter of the changes made. First the look. I like the new look—very simple. The legal pad as if I were just jotting down ideas, barely formulating sentences. That appeals, to me at least.

And the new “motto.” I never liked “Writing: Not Rocket Science. Harder.” Thought it a bit bitchy and not really true. I suspect that rocket science is a bit harder than constructing a complex sentence, complete with dependent clause. Homeopathy on the Hoof is an important concept to me, and one that I will go into in more detail later one. Suffice it to say that, if we cannot make homeopathy part of our day-to-day life, if we cannot see the symptoms and the characteristics of the different archetypes when we see them, then we can never truly call ourselves homeopaths.

It’s been an intense year, digitally speaking. I joined Facebook and LinkedIn and learned to Tweet (badly, irregularly) and found out how good it can be to be an Amazon Author. And I joined the New York Journal of Books as a literary critic. But no other part of the internet has been as much fun as this. Here I met the Skeptics and chased those flying monkeys away. And here I learned not only that narcissism is fun, but that, on the internet, it is expected.